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I've been trying to find a solution for a while for recording baseball and hockey games from my cable-provider to my computer for eventual transfer to and viewing on my android phone (and perhaps tablet in the future).

I finally found that the only real options for HD non-streaming (i commute by subway) are the eyetv hd and the hauppauge hdpvr. Now I'm trying to figure out which is the better choice for me.

They seem pretty similar, with some subtle differences. I imagine if I get the hdpvr i would use the hdpvrcapture software rather than eyetv which costs $50 more than hdpvrcapture.

Any suggestions or advice about which of the two would better suit my needs?

Search around, I think there are some people who have complained that the EyeTV HD had disappointing artifacts (such as ghosting) when digitizing from its component input. Sorry I'm being vague, but I don't own any of this hardware and don't have any links readily at hand.

Thanks Phantom Gremlin. That info is helpful. I haven't really found any good comparisons of the two hardwares, which is surprising since they are basically the only two legit products that offer what they offer.

If you do buy one, use it a lot while it is still in warranty. I had one for a while and it died after very little use.

I know you said you want to record from your cable box, but depending on the channels you want to record the baseball and hockey games from, you may want to explore a HD Home Run with EyeTV as another alternative.

Thanks for that info! Thats another concern -especially since i was thinking about getting one on ebay which prob wouldnt have a warranty... Do you know what warranty the hauppage and/or eyetv hd comes with?

Unfortunately i have cablevision of bronx ny which i have heard encrypts even clear qam so the homerun wouldnt do me much good.

I can tell you from experience that eyeTV is hands down better than haupauge. I purchased haupauge along with the independent software they have listed in their FAQ for Mac. I had nothing but problems and their technical support is absolutely horrendous. I purchased eyeTV and it has been fantastic for a Mac user. Easy, fast and great quality. I had also called their support before purchasing to gauge how they treated the customer. That too was a great experience. EyeTV all the way.

Nope, still no support for that.
I'd get the EyeTV HD. You should read up on their site about the features that are only supported with the EyeTV HD, if you haven't done so already. I, personally use the iPad recording setting a lot which makes feeding the recordings into iTunes really easy. PQ of those watched on a large TV trough the ATV2 is very good.

Thanks flavius. I have to admit I'm just kinda frustrated. It seems like every time I find a product for one device a problem appears for the other one.

Eyetv hd is made for mac, but hauppauge may be more friendly to my android phone. Eyetv hd comes with software but that software requires $20 per year subscription. Eyetv software doesn't run perfectly with hauppauge but hdpvrcapture's titantv epg system is not as advanced. Eyetv hd can't record 5.1 audio but hauppauge hardware quality may be suspect. It's making my head spin a bit

Getting this done with OS X is not easy. There's no real multi-tuner support, other than the accidental version of this feature you get with EyeTV when using the HDHomeRun - for example., short list of supported hardware etc.

I look at this as a game of trade-offs. I use a mac mini server with an EyeTV HD, recording directly to the iPad profile and iTunes. This makes the (automated) export after the recording is finished easy, it's simply a copy of the file to another location. For playback of everything recorded by EyeTV and other iTunes content I use the ATV2. We are ok with the PQ which is pretty good actually.

That's a trade-off that many won't accept. Another problem in this set-up is EyeTV will continue to record the same show, unless you manage the queue manually. You are not using EyeTV for playback, so it keeps recording the same show.

Now, to cut the cord, you need LiveTV and time shifting. To get that you will have to connect your mini to the TV and use EyeTV. I haven't done much watching using EyeTV, but I did notice some stability issues.

Not sure where Plex comes in here and what it really adds to the solution.

yeah my issue is im not outputting to an iphone or ipad or appletv right now. I just have my galaxy nexus android phone, and using a streaming server to stream to my tv via my lg bluray player... so i dont need the files to be setup in iTunes. So that element isnt necessary. Which means the big differences are the software and the digital audio. Which leaves me with a conundrum.

It would be nice if i could replace my cable dvr with this thing since with such a small harddrive on my cable dvr i found myself hardly ever bothering to tape 2 things at once anyway... so if one of the two devices would suit me better for that, it might make a difference. otherwise its just very unclear to me which one to get.

I keep going back and forth. It sounds like people here recommend eyetvhd hd. But Phantom Gremlin - i saw that eyetv hd picture quality thread on macrumors forum and that is pretty worrisome. You never ended up pulling the trigger on either one?

I have the Hauppauge! HDPVR and use it to record content from my Dish satellite receiver, mostly things I've recorded already on my DVR. I have both EyeTV 3.5.4, which I use with the HDPVR and an EyeTV 500, and HDPVRCapture, which I rarely use at all these days. I haven't had any problems with the HDPVR and my EyeTV 500 is about eight years old. I already stream stuff off of satellite (using the HDPVR) to my Apple TV using my iPhone and iPad and the EyeTV software, which is a definite plus of the software, but not the tuner.

I can't think of a reason why I'd buy the EyeTV HD since it doesn't have an internal hard drive and requires a Mac to stream. The only downside to the setup I have now is that I have to go upstairs to change channels when I'm streaming to the Apple TV and there's about 30 second delay.

Recording off of the satellite receiver in 720p, I can export recordings to h.264 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound very fast because it's not compressing, only changing the wrapper on the recorded file generated by the Hauppauge! A two hour movie takes less than five minutes to be ready for the iPad/iPhone/Apple TV. Also, I don't think the EyeTV HD supports Dolby Digital, but I could be wrong. When I record using my EyeTV 500, there's about a 90 minute compression process for each hour of 1080i video that I record, not counting that I remove the commercials where appropriate.

I keep going back and forth. It sounds like people here recommend eyetvhd hd. But Phantom Gremlin - i saw that eyetv hd picture quality thread on macrumors forum and that is pretty worrisome. You never ended up pulling the trigger on either one?

No I have never bought either of these hardware boxes.

Right now I can (and do) digitally transfer local broadcast channels from my TiVo direct to my iMac. I can't transfer anything but local channels because Frontier FiOS sets flags which prohibit it (Verizon FiOS didn't have that restriction, but Seidenberg sold us out). But this is still good for a lot of things. E.g. I was able to transfer the most recent Super Bowl to my computer and convert it to MPEG-4.

So that leaves the problem of protected HD content. I also have available a Panasonic box (I forget the exact model) that lets me record from S-Video to its hard disk and then to a DVD. My TiVo will happily output an HD program onto S-Video and preserve 16:9 aspect ratio when doing so. This is by no means HD quality, but it's not bad.

So I have a way to get content saved off to hard disk, and haven't bought a box that can capture from component video.

Some advice to you: Since you're only trying to watch on a 4" screen, a slight quality degradation might not be important to you. Even if you eventually want to view on a tablet, is the ultimate quality that important? So forget about my quality warnings and make your decision based on other criteria.

I bought the Hauppauge but I am thinking of sending it back and getting the EyeTV. I can't get the Hauppauge to work with EyeTV. I have Snow Leopard with a Mac Mini. It says it sees it but will not record anything and will not forward a picture to the screen. It just stays blank and says no content. I when ahead and purchased the HDPVR Capture to check if the unit was OK and I can get that to record no problem, but I really want to record with Eyetv off of my Comcast box. I already had Eyetv software, which I like using HD Homerun but really want to record off my Comcast box. Any Ideas on how to get EyeTV to record off the box or it is going back.

I bought this one over the EyeTV only because it could recored 5.1 but since it I can't get it to work it may have to go back.

If you are looking into recording SD content take a look at the monsoon vulkano. It is an excellent standalone product that connects to your satellite dish or cable box. It has clients for Windows/MAC/Android/IOS. It also supports recording to an external drive.
I used to have their older version called HAVA and recently purchased this later product. Very happy with it.

Are you trying to use both devices--the Homerun and the Hauppauge--with the same instance of EyeTV running on the same Mac?

I have, at this very moment:

2 Hauppauge HD-PVRs, an HDHomeRun, an EyeTV 250 Plus, and two EyeTV 200s all running with one instance of EyeTV. Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done.

The only difference between the EyeTV PVR and Hauppauge is that the Hauppauge has a digital audio input and passthrough and the EyeTV doesn't. They are, otherwise, exactly the same. I use the Hauppauges and they are rock-solid.

Looking for the same thing and noticed that nobody mentioned the Hauppauge Broadway? It used to only offer live streaming, but it looks like they've updated it to record external ( via USB stick / drive ) for later viewing.